Patch day for League of Legends!
The highly anticipated support character at long last reveals herself - Lulu, a fae sorceress and her sprite companion, Pix. With a combination of a slow, her polymorph, and her team buffs, she looks to be a fierce competitor to Janna and Sona for the title of top-tier support champion. And in addition to that, she looks fun as all hell.
Lulu's patch comes with substantial tweaks to items - Hexdrinker, a long-overlooked item, has been reworked. The new version removes an item from its recipie and reducing the cost, shield bonus, damage, and its duration. But in exchange, it upgrades into an all new item, the Maw of Malmortius, an improved version that also has an attack bonus for every 2.5% health you are missing.
The full patch notes detail that all of the lifesteal items are on the chopping block, too. Vampiric Scepter, Wriggle's Lantern, and the Bloodthirster all are having their lifesteal percentage reduced, aimed at reducing the ability to sustain in lane. Similarly, Irelia's Hiten Style and her ultimate were nerfed for a similar reason.
Jax, who has had issues with being focused, is having his hit points raised and his ultimate reworked. It now gives him bonuses to his defensive stats when he activates it, aimed at keeping him in the fight more. Blitzcrank's signature attack, the Rocket Grab, is having its damage increased greatly. Orianna players will be happy to see that her spells, which have suffered from confusing targeting, will now better convey their area of effect. While Rammus's powerball is being tweaked so it lands when you attack a champion, his armor and attack damage are being nerfed, bumping down his scary ganks slightly. Shaco, who has been known as an early-game destroyer who lategame is easily delt with, is having his damage evened out on his Two-Shiv Poison.
The most critical change I noticed was, of all things, an almost invisible nerf to the golem's blue buff, that gives massive regeneration/cooldown reduction to the wearer. Mana regeneration has been halved. This is going to do a lot to modify jungling and mid-lane battles.
The rest is all bugfixes and tooltip clarity, but it's worth taking a gander at if you're just as obsessed with this game as I am!